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MASSACHUSETTS 

AND — 

HER FORESTS 



BY 



FRANK W. RANE 



Emphasizing the Importance of 
the Work of Today in Providing 
for the Needs of the Future 







537 '44- 

MASSACHUSETTS 
AND HER FORESTS 




OR the past twenty-four years I 
have been employed as an official 
in educational, experimental, and 
demonstration forestry work in 
New England, having been State Forester of 
Massachusetts for the past thirteen years. 
During this time it has been my avowed pur- 
pose to do everything within mortal power 
to accomplish something in estaljlishing fun- 
damentals from which forestry practices of a 
permanent nature might be the outgrowth. 

There are few, if any, problems of greater 
moment and more economic importance to 
New England at the present hour than that 
of forestry. There are those still living who 
have seen beautiful primeval forests dotting 
the hills and valleys everywhere throughout 
this rugged and beautiful country. Year by 
year these forests have succumbed to our mad 
rush of uneconomic commercialism, until 
today finds us in a sadly depleted and ir- 
rational condition. 

THE FOREST PRIMEVAL 

It is always easy to point out mistakes after 
they have happened; but experience, though 
a dear teacher, should sober us at the present 
time. Year by year the primeval forest has 
been cut and harvested. Second growth, in- 
ferior but valuable, has followed, where con- 
ditions have been favorable, which, in turn, 
has been utilized as soon as it reached mer- 
chantable size. Demand for forest products 

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MASSACHUSETTS 

has increased in greater and greater propor- 
tions as we have been developing in commer- 
cial power and prestige, while products them- 
selves have been approaching exhaustion. 
During the recent war New England was 
fairly gone over with a fine-tooth comb for 
forest products for every conceivable use, and 
with results only too well known to all busi- 
ness men. 

We have looked upon our forest products 
as inexhaustible, and think that though New 
England should be depleted, there are other 
sections at our very doors with plenty for our 
demands. Many of our statesmen and fore- 
sighted, country-loving citizens have pre- 
dicted our calamity, but they have been 
heeded as one crying in the wilderness. 

THE COMMERCIAL ERA 

The commercial era has absorbed us. Es- 
thetics and standards of economics in a new 
country, whose natural resources are appar- 
ently boundless, are as nothing compared with 
commercial activities. There is bound to 
come a time, however, when the pendulum 
swings back, and unless our natural resources 
are conserved, we are bound to suffer the con- 
sequences. We are beginning to get a taste 
of it already. 

We have in New England a natural forest 
country that will respond to forestry devel- 
opment as readily as any country on earth. 
We are dependent upon the forest crop to 
continue our innumerable industries located 
everywhere throughout our five states. In 
our studies of the Massachusetts wood-manu- 
facturing industries in 1910 it was ascertained 
that this State alone converted 550,000,000 

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• o; of D.., : 

OCT H laVi'- 



AND HER FORESTS 

feet of rough lumber a year into finished prod- 
ucts. When we reahze that this is only a part 
of the product in one state, certainly not one- 
half of it, but only that portion which, after 
it leaves the sawmills, is further worked by 
machinery, it may give a basis for judging the 
industry. These wood-working industries are 
scattered everywhere throughout New Eng- 
land, and there are many thriving villages 
whose main livelihood is dependent upon 
them. 

FORESTRY AND AGRICULTURE 

Forestry and general agriculture in New 
England are to a great degree interdepend- 
able. While it is conceded that forestry is no 
longer a simple woodlot proposition, but one 
worthy of the economic utilization of all lands 
non-agricultural, nevertheless its develop- 
ment makes possible the use of labor and 
teams in winter at a time when they are 
available. Large forest areas in various sec- 
tions will greatly augment, therefore, both 
manufacturing and agriculture. 

We have not begun to realize even yet 
what we should in the economic utilization of 
the forest products we still possess. It was 
not until we were freezing, due to the coal 
shortage following war conditions, that we 
realized that wood has a value for fuel. Our 
fathers depended upon it altogether. 

In recent years wood has gone out of style, 
and even farmers have found it more conve- 
nient to have coal shipped in from Pennsyl- 
vania and West Virginia than to cut it on 
their own farms. It is an actual fact that 
during the trying times a few years since, the 
winter of the unemployed, there were instances 



MASSACHUSETTS 

of people practically freezing to death while 
wood in great quantities was rotting all about 
on our hillsides. 

War conditions drove our people to burning 
wood in their furnaces and fireplaces, and it 
is believed many will continue to use more 
firewood than heretofore as it has many ad- 
vantages even over coal. Cord wood is really 
a by-product of the forest. Great quantities 
of wood for fuel should be available in all for- 
est sections, as it is to the benefit of the forest 
that improvement thinnings be carried on, 
and whenever forest crops are being harvested 
there are always the limbs, tops, and slabs 
suitable for little else than cordwood. The 
great hindrance to the use of wood for fuel in 
the past has been the inconvenient form in 
which it has been dealt. 

City people, and users in general, are de- 
lighted to purchase wood cut into convenient 
short sizes. They do not want four-foot 
lengths. Every conceivable kind of wood can 
be used if cut into small sizes. Why should 
we not be able to utilize every stick of wood 
possible for fuel in our more thickly populated 
sections of New Englalid.'' In other sections 
there should be more definite plans for making 
it into charcoal, or shipping it to brick facto- 
ries, or using it in other ways. One is im- 
pressed in this respect when in the Black For- 
est country abroad. Everything there is util- 
ized, and there is no waste. 

NEW ENGLAND FOREST POLICIES 

Each of the New England States has its 
forest policies, and is feeling its way toward 
greater accomplishments. Much more has 
been done than most people realize. Massa- 



AND HER FORESTS 

chusetts, for example, has enacted laws aiding 
forestry in the following ways: 

1. Expert advice at no expense, except travel 
and subsistence, to anybody in the Bay State. 

2. Free forestry literature, to be sent to all citi- 
zens who care to make use of it. 

3. Forest-fire prevention. — A forest warden in 
each town, with equipment, organization, and 
mandatory laws, to get results. 

4. There are thirty-five forest-fire lookout sta- 
tions scattered over the State on high points, 
which are connected by telephone with local and 
State officials to bring aid. 

5. Forest Warden Conventions. — The forestry 
officials of cities, towns, and the State are empow- 
ered to meet to discuss methods, equipment, and 
better ways of co-operation. 

6. State Aid for Forest Fire Equipment. — The 
poorer towns are given State aid in procuring 
equipment. 

7. Utilization of Forest Products. — Studies 
and practices of making greater economic use of 
all wood in the industries, and for fuel. This in- 
cludes the cost of production and transportation. 

8. Regulations of brush and slash disposal. 

9. Railroad fires and railroads. 

10. Forest Taxation. — A modern system of 
taxing forest lands and their production. 

12. The acquiring of lands for State Forests. 

13. State Forest Nurseries. — Young trees are 
grown in State nurseries for use on State lands, and 
are sold at cost to citizens and municipalities. 

14. The Governor has power to issue proclama- 
tions for a closed season on hunting in dry times. 

15. Reforesting Private Lands. — Lands suit- 
able for planting may be turned over to the State 
Forester by title, with power of redemption within 
ten years, provided the expense of planting and 
care is reimbursed to the State. 



MASSACHUSETTS 

16. We have probably planted in Massachu- 
setts, in both public and private work, about 
25,000 acres. 

WEEDING OUT NEEDED 

Do not think that planting or reforestation 
is the whole thing. Much of our present for- 
est lands need weeding out or thinning, and 
rational management as well. We need man- 
datory laws that have enough teeth in them 
so that uneconomic practices cannot be al- 
lowed even on private holdings. This may 
seem a strong policy, but often individuals 
are their own worst enemies, and, after all, 
the economic use of lands as a whole can be 
made a success only when what benefits the 
individual also, in a larger sense, benefits the 
community. 

England begins at once to spend $17,000,000 
in forestry. Are we of New England stagger- 
ing under anything like the blow, both finan- 
cial and otherwise, that all England is bear- 
ing.'^ Should we not at least make a creditable 
start? 

If our farmers are afraid that the Lane Bill 
in congress will create over-production in agri- 
culture, why not convert a large part of our 
share into improving our forestry conditions 
throughout New England? 

FUTURE WHAT WE MAKE IT 

The future of New England forestry will be 
exactly what we of today propose to make it. 
We can continue to go along at a half-dying 
pace and try to feel we are doing something, 
but what is really needed is a definite and 
business-like and more drastic policy if we are 
to really accomplish results. We need more 



AND HER FORESTS 

live business principles, backed up by modern 
financing. If, as Americans, we can build a 
Panama Canal, a Roosevelt Dam to irrigate 
the desert, and spend uncounted billions to 
better the world's conditions, surely the rais- 
ing of funds sufficient to finance an undertak- 
ing bound to solve the future successful exist- 
ence of a country whose traditions are dear to 
us is nothing for Americans to undertake. 

It matters not, either, whether the individ- 
ual or the State does the work. The main 
thing is to get it done. Private forestry needs 
to be greatly encouraged, but it is believed that 
the State and Nation should shoulder the 
undertaking. Where would the Allies have 
turned had not France, to the credit of her 
statesmen and people, in earlier time begun 
the practice of forestry.? 

We need in New England to begin not to- 
morrow, but today, while we still have some 
remnants to tide us over the lean period, to go 
to work on a tremendous scale to recoup our 
birthright. It takes time to grow a forest, but 
we have the possibilities in millions of acres of 
idle lands that will work for us day and night, 
winter and summer, constantly solving the 
basal economic problem of the future of our 
Pilgrim lands, if only we do our duty by them. 

It is the time for all men of affairs through- 
out New England to give this subject con- 
structive thought. The future of New Eng- 
land Forestry will be what we of today make 
it in guiding its destiny. 



State House, Boston, Mass. 
Sept. 15, 1919. 



LIBRRRY OF CONGRESS 



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